Just Another Nameless Face
by firetiger3
Summary: "Left to rot in the sweltering sun, she lay there in the pool of blood, wondering how much of it was hers." Sakura smiled as the world grew dark, her sacrifice was worth it, and she wouldn't hesitate to do it again. But as much as she wanted to just slip away, the darkness was overcome by bright shades of red and orange, like the Sun was focused on her and only on her.


Alright, this is dedicated to a number of people who have been fantastic supporters! They are truly amazing people and I just won't feel right unless I give them a proper thanks!

Firstly, I'd like to thank my followers, people who have favorited/followed me or my stories, and people who have reviewed my stories. Just like most other writers on this site, I actually read the reviews I get, whether they be hurtful, or praising. I'd just like to thank you for the time you give to read my stories! It really means so, so much to me whether you review, or follow, or favorite, or even just read the first chapter!

I can't bring myself to name specific people, for sake of I'd be a little embarrassed, but seriously folks, thanks a lot.

This is actually really overdue, but with everything going on, I haven't found the time to really spend hours and hours developing this.

I'm not dead, by the way, or anything else. It's hard for me to write anything during the school year, really. So, I plan to write mainly in the Summer, but I'll try to work every so often during school.

Also, I think I managed not to curse in this one, quite a feat for me, really. It's still rated for little bits of violence and gore-ish parts. Mentioning, rather than too in depth description, since I don't care for gore too much, myself.

Onto the story!

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

* * *

Letting a long stream of air pass out through her lips, Sakura Haruno groaned as the rather large hole in her stomach throbbed painfully. She was losing blood, and she was losing it fast, but the large puddle gathering around her wasn't all hers, and she knew this. Piles of dead bodies littered the ground around her, starting to smell of rotting flesh and mossy earth as the beating hot sun bore down on them. It was likely she was the only one alive out of all of them, she was almost positive of this, after all, she was the one who had so cruelly ripped them from this life, after all.

A sort of laugh escaped her throat, as scratched as it was. What a way to die, wasn't it? Low Chakra levels and painfully exhausted from the consecutive healing she had done not long before she had arrived on the scene was what ultimately led to her downfall. And the fact she had practically been living off soldier pills and meager bits of water every now and again didn't exactly help the cause either. The sudden Chakra spike she could sense from a million miles away was all that was needed to send her scrambling from the Medical Tent and out in the field, despite the terrified screams of her subordinates, left without orders or instructions, and the worried shouts of her friends, both ones she had known for a while and ones she had just met on the battlefield.

It was happening all over again. Her memories overflowed her, slipping these distressed thoughts into her own reality, flashes of this eerily similar parallel covered her vision in brief, short bursts until she could no longer tell reality from fantasy. Like a bad drama Ino had often forced her to watch on lonely Friday nights, she joked, as she tore numerous bodies out of the way to reach them, and with each step forward, it seemed she was moved two steps back, farther and farther away from them.

Like always…

* * *

_As the two inched closer and closer together with each passing second, Sakura could feel her eyes widen and her arms reach out to them, trying to catch up to them, and maybe once! Just for once, she would succeed in this endeavor, of all things. Her teeth grit and a snarl formed upon her lips, she would, if it was to be the last thing she would do. And if everything would happen like a charm, it would be the last thing._

_And finally, somehow, she managed to reach them just in time. This one time, out of every other countless times, she had at last succeeded. And by this point, things were moving in such a slow manner that she took a few moments to recognize the cold rush that ran raw through her veins and at the same time, sent violent shivers down her back. The feeling gave her a sudden burst of strength and sudden-awareness, which, in itself, also brought upon her the knowledge of a horrible, terrible truth that was undoubtedly _

_How bitter sweet._

_For a split second, she felt like she was just drifting in the clouds, or perhaps afloat in the middle of calm waters, nothing disturbing, nothing to worry or care about, like she was free of all the truths of life that kept her so tightly changed to that ever-present reality of the world. Nothing was happening, and for once she felt free, like falling at such a slow rate, you can only imagine a soft bed waiting for you at the very end of it all. But of course that wasn't what was to happen._

_In a mere few seconds, her high came crashing down, the barrier of her oblivion to all the gore and death around her was pierced, quite literally. A scream threatened to rip through her throat, but she found it couldn't escape, lodged there until the urge to do so eventually disappeared._

_And then, well, then nothing, really. Sakura could feel herself collapse on the cool, hard ground. It felt strangely refreshing, being able to relax at last. With what little strength she had left, she rolled onto her back, her eyes feeling an unfamiliar weight upon them, fluttering in a bitter attempt to remain awake, despite the residue of mild shocks and throbs of pain that still resided as battle wounds. _

_Her drowsiness won her over, however, she became enveloped in black. Complete and total darkness, in which you could not only fail to see a single thing mere inches from you own eyes, but it was also dark to a point where you even began to mistrust every other sense that remained valid. It was a weird feeling, one she had never really experience before, after all, what use was a Shinobi who was completely and totally disabled? _

_Shuttered breathing became less erratic as the throbs of pain became less and less frequent, until Sakura could no longer feel much, like her body had an endless amount of painkillers being pumped into it. Well, at least she knew they hadn't punctured a lung if she could breathe this well, a clot must be starting to form then too, the blood stuck the fabric of her clothes uncomfortably to her skin, and if pulled off now, it would undoubtedly rip off a few newly regenerated skin cells to replace the ones she had recently just lost._

_Her wound had most likely occurred somewhere around the stomach area, perhaps a little to the left, avoiding the spinal cord, since she could still move. Well, at least, it was technically physically possible, if not for the searing pain it caused every time she attempted to get up. Her hands and most of her upper body was still maneuverable, though her legs still hurt too much too so much as twitch a single toe._

_Dangerously low Chakra levels prevented Sakura from healing herself, otherwise she would have already started the procedure. Such a thing wasn't so foreign to her, similar had happened in her fight with Sasori after her had pierced her body with his sword. This was certainly a little different, though. Regenerating tissue to reconstruct the partially missing organ was different from stitching a wound close, she wasn't really missing anything major then. Besides, she was pretty sure she heard some bones crack too, perhaps a rib or two, and in addition to all that, the amount of blood she had lost by now would require a transplant, which she didn't currently have on hand. _

_It would be a miracle if she ever got out of this one, at the rate she was losing blood, it wouldn't be too long until she passed. In fact, it had been approximately 90 seconds since she had felt the attack go straight through her body, and she was surprised she had survived this long. Maybe the attack hadn't been as deep or as horrid as she initially thought, though it certainly felt like it. Even so, she failed to see how she could underestimate her own injuries when she had felt the full blunt of its fury. _

_But her dark was soon penetrated, a soft glow of an orange-red hue, like when you closed your eyes to face the sun. It started out as a weak sensation, she could barely notice it first, until it began to glow brighter and brighter until the sense was overwhelming. Seeing the light, was this what they meant by that? Surely she hadn't died quite yet, not now! What about saying her final goodbyes, what about seeing them all one last time?_

_Just once more…_

* * *

"Sakura! Sakura-chan!"

In an instant, Sakura was snapped out of her thoughts and she saw a certain blonde kneeled over her, tears pouring out of his eyes and falling silently to the earth. The site made her let out a small, bittersweet chuckle, she really would miss the idiot.

"Idiot," she muttered, lifting a shaky hand to wipe away the tears that trailed down Naruto's cheeks. "Looks like I'm the one protecting you this time, I guess I get to finally pay you back after all." She erupted into a fit of coughs after that, blood splattering on her already blood-soaked shirt which had previously only been colored with the blood of others.

"D-don't give up, Sakura-chan! Kaka-sensei's is on the way with Ba-chan, and-and you'll be alright! And-" Naruto's words became more and more jumbled as he went on rambling, explaining how they'd return to Konoha as heroes and never see so much violence again in all the Four Nations or something like that. But something seemed missing from the speech that tumbled out of his mouth.

"Naruto."

He seemed to not have heard her call for him, not even pausing in the middle of his rant for even the slightest breath of air. Continuing on, he continued on talking, this time saying something along the lines of him as Hokage and her as Head of the Konoha Hospital.

"Naruto!"

This time he heard her, and promptly shut up, listening carefully to tend to her needs, first and foremost.

Sakura paused to let out a shuddered sigh and struggled to look him earnestly in the eyes. "Where's Sasuke?"

"W-What?"

"You heard me, Naruto, where is he?"

Sakura didn't think she had ever seen anyone avert their eyes so quickly as an immediate reaction. At first she received no response, the lingering silence creating an uncomfortable air around the two of them.

When Naruto finally responded, he replied in such a quiet and very un-Naruto like manner, that his words sounded like incoherent jumbles of gibberish, some sort of foreign alien language that was strange to the both of them.

"What was that?"

"I killed him, Sakura, I killed him. He deserved it, he called you…. He called you names and was about to trample you while you were down." Naruto kept his eyes down, refusing to meet her gaze after he had so cruelly slaughtered his best friend's past crush.

With trembling hands and what little energy she had left, Sakura turned his chin to face her, and she smiled reassuringly. "It's alright, Naruto. Whatever you're thinking, I forgive you. Perhaps it's better it ended like this." The words, _"As opposed to dying without you here." _were left unsaid, but still hung in the air. As soon as she finished her sentence, she erupted into a fit of coughs that was particularly painful for her abdominal region, just the place where the gigantic hole in her stomach was. Great.

Naruto panicked, he really had no clue what to do, even though lately he had been hanging around Baa-chan, especially since he was next in line for Hokage, the Slug Princess hadn't passed on all of her knowledge. Naruto wasn't exactly a Medic-Nin after all, and lacked the precise Chakra Control needed to become such.

Her world grew darker, and her eyesight became restricted to somewhat of a sort of tunnel vision. Her head throbbed painfully, and she could barely hear. Well, it looks like it was really the end now… Using whatever strength she had left, Sakura grinned and patted Naruto's cheek lightly.

"Have fun being in charge, Hokage-sama."

* * *

It was moments later, not even five minutes, that the Copy Cat Ninja and the Slug Princess burst into the clearing. The silence was almost unbearable as the two of them stared in horror at what greeted them.

Bodies upon bodies littered the grassy floor, some mercifully killed, and others seemed to have passed from blood loss or some other slow-killing injury. But there were only three that stood out among the nameless faces, and needless to say, all of them were almost as drenched in blood as the rest of the corpses laying around.

Almost… That meant there was still some hope right?

It was immediate reaction to rush over as quickly as they could, eyes wide in fear for the loss of their beloved students (or student, in Tsunade's case), hands trembling and clammy with sweat, and thoughts immediately falling into disbelief.

Naruto looked up at the two of them, his normally bright blue eyes dulled almost to the point of grey, and looked solemnly back to the bodies of his two teammates. "They're gone," he spat, "Both of them! And I couldn't do anything!"

His mouth curled into a snarl of disgust, mostly at himself, but also at the war which had cased all of this. What he woudn't give for Team 7 to be just Team 7 again, a family just like in the good days, where there was nothing to worry about, where everything was just right, where nothing mattered. Yes, those days were the days he missed the most, even when Sakura hit him and Sasuke constantly insulted him, those were his most prized memories of all, memories he clung onto dearly. And that's all they were, memories. At one time they were dreams of the future, but now, those had been shattered too. And what could he do about it? Right… Nothing.

It crushed Kakashi and Tsunade both to see him like this. Broken and battered, so unlike the Jinchuuriki they had grown to know and love so dearly. But it was also understandable, somewhat. From the looks of it, the two were dead, past revival, whether of the Forbidden sort or not. The two of them were broken too, in their own ways, such was the life of a Ninja, but they could not just count these deaths as "Just Another Death Of A Comrade". No, these were people they had actually known, cared for, and above all loved. It was so much more than just a name and meaningless face, so much more…

Kakashi perhaps, took it worse than Naruto and Tsunade, if possible. So many precious people he had lost, so many times he had sworn to protect them from harm's way. And for what? Only to be killed, while here he was, unable to do a single thing about it. Truly, it crushed him, which was apparent in the way his shoulders sagged more than usual, and his only visible eye duller than usual. He was quick to turn away, another moment of hopelessly staring at the bodies of two of his former students would have broken him for good.

Well, it wasn't as if Kakashi wasn't broken already. In fact, many times he had felt as if his heart had been shredded to pieces. Each time he had forced himself to hurriedly patch it up and throw himself into a life filled with nothing but missions and training with no breaks in between. There was no time to stop and pity himself. That would get you killed, not to mention everyone else too.

But since when did that matter anymore? He had promised to protect them, to give his own life for theirs. And like always, he was too late. What did anything matter now? Isolation and despair were the only things waiting for him now, after so many years of trying and trying, perhaps it was finally time to give up…

However, Tsunade wasn't as easily ready to give up hope. If there was a will, there was a way. Even if there wasn't one, she would make one! Her first priority, though, as much as she wanted to rush to her precious student's side, was Naruto. The boy was alive, and could join his teammates if he didn't get attention soon enough, and that was something she wasn't willing to risk.

A quick examination provided Tsunade with all the information she would need. A few broken ribs, varying degrees of burns, pulled muscles, some gashes. Nothing too bad, well, not as bad as she expected, the fight with the previously last Uchiha could have gone much worse. In fact, it was quite surprising he had ended it with so little injuries.

Naruto, however, didn't respond to her care, his eyebrows furrowed and lips set in a deep frown. His tears had long ago run out, only leaving wet tear tracks down his face and a patch of wet soil by his knees.

The next stop was Tsunade's precious student, the Uchiha Traitor could wait, even if he was alive of the two of them. After all, he had been part of the reason for Sakura's death. Tsunade knelt by the motionless corpse of her precious student and blinked rapidly to fight back the tears that threatened to spill at any moment. It was only natural, her student was like the daughter she never had, along with Shizune, of course. Hands trembling, she reached for the vein in Sakura's neck, hoping, pleading for any sign a life, a chance for her survival!

…

Nothing.

Tsunade didn't really know what she had expected. It was apparent that she was dead and gone to the World beyond, hopefully happy and free. Her head hung low as silent sobs wracked her body, warm, salty tears flowing freely now.

But then… then she felt it, a pulse. A faint, weak one, but a pulse none the less. Immediately, her head snapped up and a warm green glow enveloped her hands as they rushed to save her student's life. "Don't you dare give up on me now, Sakura! Don't you dare!"

And these words, these magical, wonderful words, caused both men to look at them and didn't hesitate to rush to Tsunade's side, eager to help in whatever way they could to bring their Blossom back to life.

* * *

D'awww. I'm a sucker for happy endings. I'm considering making this into a multi-chapter, how this affected Sakura's life and all, it could turn out to be a fun story to work on. Lucky that school's almost out for me, I'll have a little more time for writing!

With love to each and every one of you,

firetiger3


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